FEATURE FOCUS: MENTAL HEALTH & WELLBEING
The importance of mental health support and funding within the education sector
introduced courses in mental health, self-harm, and suicide awareness to help combat the mental health awareness skills gap. As we move forwards from the pandemic and
into a new academic year, The Skills Network believes that the mental health and wellbeing of teachers, children and young people must remain a priority within the sector.
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n the first of our features on mental health and wellbeing this month, we’re delighted
to hear from James Earl, Executive Director of Sales at The Skills Network, who looks at the effect the pandemic has had on the wellbeing of teachers and students over the past year, and offers some ideas on how to manage the inevitable challenges which lie ahead.
Mental health awareness is an integral skill to have, especially in the education space, and the wellbeing of students and teachers alike must be placed at the centre of the education system. Over the past year, the UK’s largest online learning provider, The Skills Network, has
Feeling the impact of the pandemic across the education sector The year of 2020 has changed the face of learning, with schools, businesses, and colleges all over the world moving classrooms online to teach, access and collaborate. Despite being an established online-learning provider for over eleven years, with technology-based learning always being at the heart of what we do, at The Skills Network we saw a surge in enquiries back in March 2020. Schools across the UK reached out for expert
support on how to create an effective virtual classroom environment for their pupils, businesses needed support to provide virtual training for their remote workforce, and care homes needed a way to provide staff with online training resources. It’s no surprise that the learning experience has
changed dramatically over the past 18 months. The impact of the pandemic has been particularly hard on those within the education sector, with both educators and students having to quickly adapt to new ways of teaching. With this sudden change many students began
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to suffer mentally. Further education students aged 18–24 reported a decline in mental health and wellbeing during the 2020 UK lockdown, with nearly three quarters (73%) of students saying that their mental health had worsened [1]. We understand that it isn’t just students who
have found the past 18 months difficult, with a wellbeing survey last year finding that 20 per cent of teachers had no form of mental health support available at their school or college [3]. Now more than ever before, adults in the UK
are struggling with mental health. The suicide rate for men in England is at its highest in two decades, with nearly half (42 %) saying that the previous pandemic restrictions have had a negative impact on their mental health [4]. A YouGov poll of UK workers found that the
2021 lockdown had been the most difficult, with nearly 50 per cent saying their mental health was worse than it was during the first two lockdowns and more than 6,000 people across the UK taking their lives each year [4].
Introducing new courses for teachers and pupils We understand that mental health must take a priority in the current climate. That is why the Skills Network has introduced fully funded courses in mental health, bullying awareness and self- harm amongst others. The knowledge that teachers and pupils can
gain from these new courses can be applied to a broad range of personal and professional situations. The courses are not just confined to
September 2021
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